TGIF and Happy Independence Day! Tomorrow is America's birthday (and mine) and I'll be celebrating/contemplating how frighteningly grownup 29 sounds on a beach in New Jersey, watching the fireworks, beer in hand. Doesn't get more Amurrica than that, now, does it? Of course, part of my heart and soul would rather be heading to the manor across wet green fields in a crappy convertible as in the pic above but this is the curse/conflict of the transatlantic babe. I'll bring a bottle of Pimms to the beach. Have the most beautiful long weekend everyone. See below for my best of the net this week.

I'm Alexandra King-Lyles, a journalist and writer living on a tree-lined street in Park Slope, Brooklyn with my husband Isaac and two black cats. I moved to New York from London in 2009, thinking I would only stay for nine months. Seven years later, I'm still here. On The Street Where I Live, you'll find real talk about relationships, careers, interiors, books and fashion as well as snapshots and personal stories from a blissfully imperfect life. Welcome, I'm so glad you're here.